Spending Round 2019

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is extensive interest in the Chancellor’s statement, but I remind the House that there is a ten-minute rule motion to follow and other important business that must come onstream absolutely no later than 3 o’clock, and that therefore there is a premium on brevity from Back and Front Benches alike. I also make the obvious point that realistically lots of people who want to contribute will not have the opportunity to do so.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Wokingham and West Berkshire Councils need money for social care and schools. The current funding is not adequate. I am grateful to the Chancellor. This is very welcome. Does he agree that, at a time of world slowdown, led by a manufacturing recession in several leading countries, a boost to the economy is much needed here and that this is part of that boost?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great experience. I very much agree that one of the outcomes of today’s spending round will be a further confidence boost to our economy.

Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who has been a consistent champion of animal welfare since the moment she was elected to this House.

Hooray—Parliament is doing something! At long last we are making it worth while to come here. Colleagues should recognise that this is a broken Parliament. Why is it broken? Because we had an ill-advised general election, which my party obviously decided to hold. It was a disastrous result from my party’s point of view. We lost our majority and cobbled together some sort of alliance with the Democratic Unionist party. It has taken the business managers, who have come and gone over the past two years, a long time to get a grip on what to do in this sort of Parliament. At long last, they seem to have realised that there are things we can do. The Chief Whip has just disappeared, but one of his colleagues is on the Treasury Bench. I say to the business managers: if my party is struggling with a legislative programme for the new Queen’s Speech, why not consult the hon. Member for Southend West? I have a whole range of measures on which I think we could get some sort of cross-party support. Our constituents are very frustrated about the situation. If we are not going to have a general election, we cannot just keep on discussing meaningless motions. We have to get on and do something, and we could do a whole raft of things that could improve the quality of life in this country.

There is no point in our legislating on anything unless we enforce the legislation, so I was puzzled by the exchange earlier when my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) challenged my hon. Friend the Minister about cruelty to tethered horses. I listened to an Adjournment debate led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on that very same issue. It is a puzzle to me, because in 1988, through a ten-minute rule Bill that became an Act of Parliament—the noble Lord Hogg was the Minister at the time—we got on to the statute book an Act to stop horses, ponies and donkeys being cruelly tethered and to make sure that they were properly watered and fed. For goodness’ sake, what has happened to that Act of Parliament? I realise that the longer we are here —I will come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) in a moment—the more we are forgotten, but that is an Act of Parliament. If we have the law already, it is no good people jumping up with suggestions; we need to do something. We need to enforce the law that already exists, so I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will do something about that.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does this measure not try to address that very point? We are all extremely frustrated that a good law is not being properly enforced; this measure might help.

[Sir David Amess]

My right hon. Friend, who has years of wisdom and experience, is yet again absolutely right. My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) mentioned the fact that had he been listened to in 2006, the measure we are discussing would have already happened.

I am not going to fall out with the Opposition, but the hon. Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) has heard me say before that when the new Labour leader became Prime Minister in 1997, he and his team consulted a huge range of animal charities, and there was, over Labour’s 13 years in government, some disappointment about the failure to deliver. That is except for one issue, on which I might fall out with one or two colleagues, and that is foxhunting. I have always felt—in those days, there were just four or five of us—that the Labour party did a good thing on foxhunting. However, I absolutely empathise with my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire in respect of those 13 years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). There is a rare outbreak of consensual agreement across the Benches today, which I am proud to be part of.

All of us who are speaking in the Chamber today are speaking on behalf of those who do not have a voice. We are speaking on behalf of those whom it is our human duty to protect, to feed, to care for and to love. In particular, I speak today on behalf of Baby the bulldog and of Scamp the dog and, of course, of so many other animals who have met their sad end at the hands of humans. They should have been nurtured, stroked and loved, but instead they were ultimately abused and then killed.

I am very glad finally to have the opportunity to speak to this Bill, which has, as has been said, been a long time coming. I was proud to spend the night in Parliament in July 2016, as I queued for a private Member’s Bill that was pretty much, word for word, the Bill that we have here today, and I am so pleased to see it here in paper. That Bill sought to increase the maximum sentencing for animal cruelty from six months to five years, building on a lot of work that had been done in the past, but sadly, that Bill was objected to by the Government Whips and never made it to Second Reading, and then ultimately fell with the onset of the 2017 general election. Of course, I am delighted that it is here, and I will not hold what happened against the Government. A few months later, I am delighted to say, they saw sense and announced support for the policy, and here we are today.

The change in law has been a long time coming. For too long animal abusers have been getting away with a slap on the wrist, and this Bill will finally, I hope, bring justice for the thousands of animals who have suffered human cruelty. Like the hon. Member for Southend West, I did not come to Parliament expecting to champion animal cruelty. It was an incident of the most horrific cruelty in my constituency that caused me to understand the scale of what is happening around the country, and made me determined to make a difference and to change things. I apologise for some of the graphic details that I am about to share, but it is really important that we understand the reality of what is happening, and has happened, in the country and what has driven us to bring about this change in law today.

Baby was a small bulldog who was cruelly abused by Andrew Daniel Frankish in Redcar. Baby was held aloft by Andrew Frankish at the top of some wooden stairs before he repeatedly threw her down them, laughing as his brother filmed it. Baby was completely submissive throughout the episode, not even making a noise as she landed on the stairs, bouncing to the foot them and crashing through a baby gate to the floor. Her neck was stamped on and she was thrown to the floor with force over and over again. Her small chest was jumped on with the full body weight of one of the Frankish brothers.

One of the men said, “See if we can make it scream any more. We should throw it down the stairs by its ears,” before picking her up, throwing her against the wall, headbutting her twice and throwing her down the stairs again. Baby was tortured and beaten by those who were supposed to care for her. The whole horrible ordeal was filmed by the brothers for their entertainment, and they are heard laughing on the mobile phone. Baby should not have had to suffer that horrific abuse, but she did, and sadly was put down shortly afterwards. The evidence was found two years later on a mobile phone that happened to have been dropped on a supermarket floor; but for that, those two young men would never have been brought to justice.

We would hope that Baby would have seen justice after what she had been through, but sadly not. Despite the hard work of the police, the RSPCA and all those who gave evidence, the brothers were convicted of causing unnecessary suffering to her by subjecting her to unnecessary physical violence—an offence under the Animal Welfare Act 2006. But she was let down because the two brothers received a suspended sentence, just six months’ tagged curfew and £300 in costs. No one in this Chamber or the country can possibly feel that the justice system did its job that day.

That was when I decided to try to amend the law to ensure that sentences fit the crime in horrific cases such as this, and I was pleased to present my Animal Cruelty (Sentencing) Bill two years ago. During the progress of that Bill, another horrific incident in my constituency made the case for a change in the sentencing law even more pressing. A small dog named Scamp was found buried alive in woods near Redcar with a nail hammered into its head. The perpetrators pleaded guilty to offences under the Animal Welfare Act and were sentenced to just four months—not enough time for reflection, punishment or rehabilitation.

[John Redwood]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing these horrendous stories to the attention of the House; they are very powerful in making the case that we all want to make. I thank her for what she is doing.

[Anna Turley]

I really appreciate that sentiment; that was very decent of the right hon. Gentleman. So often these cases bubble up in the media but then disappear. If this place is for anything, it is for responding to situations such as this and acting. I am proud that we are all here today to do that.

Scamp, as I said, was found buried alive. The people of my constituency were horrified by the two cases I have mentioned. I pay tribute to their response. Vigils were held in my community for those animals. Hundreds of people came to lay flowers and candles and to send out the message, loudly and defiantly, that the perpetrators do not represent our community. They do not represent the people of Redcar, who are decent and kind and love animals. But the people are angry: they feel that the criminal justice system has let them down, as do the majority of people across our nation of animal lovers.

On researching how these crimes could have resulted in such impossibly lenient sentences, I was astonished to find that the maximum sentence for any form of animal abuse is just six months’ custody. Incredibly, that has not changed since the Protection of Animals Act 1911, which was introduced, essentially, to make it an offence to override or overload animals pulling loads on the street or in pits. The law is lagging a century behind. If we are to continue declaring ourselves to be a nation of animal lovers, this Bill is necessary to send a loud and clear message that we take animal cruelty seriously.

I join others in paying tribute to the animal welfare organisations that have supported this campaign and for their efforts—day in, day out—in saving and protecting animals and investigating crimes. Specifically, I would like to thank the RSPCA, the Dogs Trust, Battersea Dogs & Home and the League Against Cruel Sports. I also thank the wider public for their contribution to the progress that the Bill represents. Colleagues across the House will have been lobbied by many of their constituents who have passionately held views on the need to protect animals and ensure that sentencing is a proportionate punishment.

NHS Pensions: Taxation

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is also why the Secretary of State is meeting representatives of the medical profession today. The hon. Lady asks whether the 50:50 scheme is enough and whether more can be done. Those are precisely the issues that the Health Secretary is discussing with those representatives of the medical profession. Of course he is working hand in hand with the Treasury to find NHS-specific solutions to deal with the problems that we all acknowledge and that have been raised today by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). We all acknowledge that.

The important thing to remember is that, while we need to look for NHS-specific solutions—which is precisely what the Health Secretary is working on—the broader issue of taxation cannot be looked at just for one profession. The broader issue of the pension system has to be looked at in the round and in the whole. I am not going to stand at the Dispatch Box today and announce an entirely new pensions policy. We are pragmatically dealing with the situation that has arisen in the NHS, and of course we continue to review our pensions system to ensure that it makes financial sense for those people contributing to it as well as for the Exchequer. We pay more than £50 billion-worth of pension tax relief and it is important that we get value for money for that—that is why the reforms were conducted earlier—but of course we continue to review the arrangements to ensure that they are providing value for money as well as the right incentives for people to save for their later age.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

In west Berkshire and Wokingham, we desperately need to recruit and retain more doctors and other senior medical personnel. Will the Treasury look at the 60% tax rate that kicks in at £100,000 for a band of income above that? A lot of important public service workers, not just in the NHS, are caught in that band and are paying higher marginal tax rates than people earning a lot more.

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In general, I am in favour of lower taxes and a simpler tax system that always rewards those who go out to work.

Privileges

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

As I said to my hon. Friend earlier, I think there is a basic principle and a presumption that witnesses, be they a Minister or not, should attend Committees conducting inquiries. Select Committees conduct such inquiries on behalf of the House, with powers delegated to them by the House. I also believe that if a Member of the House of Lords chose to use their special privileges as a parliamentarian not to be summoned in front of a Committee, that would not be appropriate if that Member of the House of Lords held an important public position, as many Members of the House of Lords do.

Other options are available to question Members of Parliament and Ministers that are not available to question a private citizen. The only forum we have to question a private citizen as part of a parliamentary inquiry is to invite them to appear before a Select Committee. That power is incredibly important, because the role of a Select Committee is not just to scrutinise the work of a Government Department or a public body, but to scrutinise other matters of public interest, where a Committee believes there is a case for Government intervention, new rules or new laws on something important. It is for the Committees to determine the scope of their inquiries, and witnesses should attend when required. It is very rare that witnesses choose not to attend.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Of course, Mr Cummings cannot be with us today—and did not want to be with us on another occasion. Did he give any indication that he thought there was some legal reason why it would be better if he did not attend?

[Damian Collins]

The correspondence between me as Chair of the Committee and Mr Cummings is published in full in the Committee’s report, so any Member can read that and make their own judgment as to the case that Mr Cummings made. Obviously, the matter was also reviewed by the Privileges Committee, which also invited Mr Cummings to speak to it as part of its inquiry, which he declined. Mr Cummings stated that other cases were involved, and that he had been guided by the people he had spoken to not to appear, but there was no reason in law for that. He was not under personal investigation; he was not likely to be charged with an offence. He may have all sorts of private grounds for not wanting to do it, but unless there is a particular legal reason why witnesses should not appear, I do not believe it is good enough for them to create reasons why they would rather not give evidence; that would undermine the whole process. If a witness declines to give evidence simply because it is unsatisfactory to him to do so, I do not think we should accept it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins]

That is absolutely right. I was a member of the Committee when Rupert Murdoch came to give evidence, in response to a summons of the House. That was right in the middle of the phone-hacking scandal, with legal cases left, right and centre—massive challenges for that business—and yet he considered that it was his responsibility and the proper thing to respond, give evidence in person and answer all the Committee’s questions. If it is good enough for someone of the stature of Rupert Murdoch, surely Dominic Cummings could find time in his busy schedule as well. There was no reason why he should not have done so.

There have been other times when my Committee has struggled to get witnesses to attend and they have attended at the last minute. We are going through that process now with some companies. We may wish to call other organisations as well. We saw during our inquiry that other political campaigns, such as the shadowy Mainstream Network, which was advertising last year on Facebook, were seeking to get members of the public to lobby their MP on what they should or should not do on the Brexit withdrawal agreement. Other organisations, such as We are the 52% and Britain’s Future, are doing that right now. We might want to call in such organisations in future as part of investigations, but they could look at the behaviour of Dominic Cummings and say, “We are disinclined to come, and there is not much you can do about it.”

People often cite the ancient powers of the House to lock people up in a prison under Big Ben or in the House, and those powers technically still exist, but they would rightly be considered to be unenforceable. The House must therefore debate and decide what we want to do when witnesses decline to attend. There should be a proper process; it should not just be down to the arbitrary summons of 11 Members of Parliament. There should be a proper process to check—as the Privileges Committee has done—that the Committee was following due process, that it had good grounds, and that there was a public interest in the witness attending. Then, when they fail to attend, there should be some clear sanction. In other Parliaments in the world, there are rules in such cases—a referral to court or some other body that makes the final decision and imposes a sanction. I believe we now need clearly codified rules, on both summoning witnesses and ordering papers.

[John Redwood]

I am interested in this point. What kind of sanction does my hon. Friend think would be appropriate and might make a difference?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Along with many colleagues, I think that the Select Committee system is a good one, and it can only operate if we invite witnesses to give evidence. If they do not want to appear, we can summon them, so I think the debate is timely. It should not just be about one particular case or person but encompass the important issues alluded to by some of the previous speakers that revolve around the question of what is a compelling invitation and what is a sanction for those who refuse the invitation or the requirement that they should attend and answer questions.

[Michael Fabricant]

I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend so early in his speech, but I want to probe him on this. Earlier in the debate, Members discussed what happened in other countries—for example, the United States, where there are sanctions if someone does not appear before a House Committee. Then we get into a position whereby witnesses say to the Committee, “I am sorry, I won’t answer that because it might incriminate me.” Does my right hon. Friend think that we have to be careful lest we end up with that situation? It is about getting the balance right.

[John Redwood]

I agree that it is about balance. My hon. Friend has invited me to reach my conclusion before I have made my argument. However, cutting to part of the conclusion, yes, we do need to look at sanctions, and it would be good if as a result of this debate the relevant Committee considered practice in other good, democratic institutions around the world and looked at which were most effective. We need to be seen, as we are, as a serious body with every right to require any UK citizen to come here and explain themselves, and we need to be able to enforce that in a sensible and proportionate way. I do not think that our current enforcement is proportionate if someone has no good reason to refuse or deny.

I want to develop one or two exceptions to that rule. At the heart of this particular case is the issue of whether or not legal proceedings are under way that could in some way be prejudiced if the witness came here and spoke too widely about the things that the authorities were investigating. There is a sub judice rule. It is always a matter of judgment for any individual who faces that kind of proceeding, and it is also a matter of judgment for lawyers involved in prospective cases. I do not think that we should ignore that, as it could be an important part of this particular case, and can certainly be a crucial part of any future case. If someone has to answer because there is a general worry about their past conduct—I am not talking about Mr Cummings; I am talking about a future case—it is quite likely that there could be a legal inquiry, as well as the wish to have a parliamentary inquiry.

If we are going to have higher sanctions, as I suspect we should, we need to be even clearer about what are the legitimate legal grounds. That brings me to my next point. When people do something that is contentious for the wider public and for Members of Parliament, and which splits opinion in the country, there is a danger of too many inquiries. Suddenly, they are all across the media, and are on the front pages of the newspapers. Everyone is talking about them, and people chase the ambulance—they want to chase the excitement. There is a danger that there will be several Committees in this House wanting to conduct an inquiry into largely the same thing from different departmental perspectives. They may want to home in on the same key witnesses, because they are so newsworthy at the moment. We may then be in a position where we overload potential witnesses, and get in the way of conducting a fair inquiry that can add to our understanding, rather than just adding to glamorous media reports of our involvement.

[Damian Collins]

I know that my right hon. Friend is talking in general terms about a future case, but for the record, in this particular case involving Mr Cummings, Select Committees were not competing to ask him to come and give evidence. We were the only Committee that sought to invite him to appear, and we took advice from the House authorities on whether or not the concerns raised about other cases were relevant to our request.

[John Redwood]

I understand that, and I explicitly said that I was not talking about Mr Cummings in that part of my speech. This is about how we enforce in general, as well as being about the sanction that the House wishes to confirm in the motion against a particular individual. Certainly, Mr Cummings, Vote Leave and all the rest of it might have been subject to other inquiries, because there has been huge political interest in that both outside and inside the House, and it is a contentious matter. It is the kind of thing where there could be inquiry overload, with more heat but not a lot of light. We need a period of calm reflection, as I know the Committee Chairman and others are undertaking, to think about a range of possibilities.

There are two issues to deal with before we think of intensifying our sanction regime. First, can a witness give a really good reason, because of some kind of legal advice or legal inquiry? We do not want to get in the way of proper inquiries into possibly serious crimes. Secondly, can we make sure that we do not contribute to chasing excitement, and often false allegations, because an individual is in the media spotlight? Where there is a serious interest, perhaps a lead Committee should take it up and handle that particular person.

It is also important to be fair between the different possible categories of witnesses. We have to bear in mind that an individual will not have the back-up, support and cover for legal and other costs that may be involved in being on the wrong end of an inquiry, whereas a representative of a great company will have enormous support and will have people writing parts of their evidence and drawing on the back data that is needed, and they will obviously have cover for legal expenses.

[Michael Fabricant]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for mentioning the types of witnesses who appear before Select Committees. I simply want to put the record straight. Is he aware that Dominic Cummings’s father was an oil rig project manager, his mother was a special needs teacher and he went to Durham School? To categorise him, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) did, as some sort of “posh boy” is completely wrong.

[John Redwood]

It is always better to deal in facts than in general allegations or misdescriptions, so I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

The point I am making is that Committees should understand that an individual who does not work for a great corporation, who does not have a well-paid job or who is no longer part of an organisation does not have the same back-up and support as someone who is still the chief executive of a mighty company.

[Damian Collins]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point. The chief executive of a big company will have a team of people to help them prepare their evidence, but that is not required. Committees well understand that a submission from a company might be different from a submission from a private individual. There are many private individuals who submit written evidence and who freely come to give evidence to Committees without any of that support. All we ask them to do is to come and talk about themselves. In fact, when they seek to give evidence, they have the same legal immunity and protection as members of the Committee do, so they do not have to worry about potentially incriminating themselves or taking legal advice before speaking out.

[John Redwood]

I was not going to conclude that we should stop asking people who do not have a well backed up job, but we need to understand, as I am sure my hon. Friend does, that if we are asking an individual who was once in an important position, with all that back-up, to come and talk about events of a year or two years ago, and if they do not wish to mislead the Committee and they wish to be factually accurate, they will need somehow to get access to the records of their past institution and they will need to go through a lot of preparation, and they will have to do it all for themselves or spend their own money on getting advice and legal support.

[George Eustice]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to be mindful of the unintended consequences if we were to introduce a stronger sanction on witnesses for failing to appear? What if, for instance, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee were holding an inquiry into phone hacking and decided it would be newsworthy to force the parents of a murdered schoolchild to appear before the Committee? That would clearly be inappropriate, and it would clearly be inappropriate to use such a sanction in that situation.

[John Redwood]

That is another hard case I had not thought of, and it needs to be taken into account as we pursue this general issue of what would be a relevant sanction.

The third category of people is senior officials and Ministers who receive salaries from the public via the Government. I think they should be more answerable than anybody else, because they are, by definition, primarily remunerated by and spend much of their lives working for the Government and the public. I would have difficulties if we found that Committees could not get access to senior officials who work full time for the Government and the wider public or if, in certain cases, as my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) mentioned earlier, Ministers did not think they should be answerable to elected Assemblies because they thought it might be inconvenient to give more background or detail on the policies they have been pursuing or the decisions they have taken.

I would want to weight things a bit more heavily in favour of this House having extremely strong powers to demand the presence of senior officials and Ministers, who should not be able to refuse to answer, unless it is a state secret or a matter of national defence, just because it is embarrassing or might reveal that the Government have made a mistake or wasted a lot of money—as if those things never happen. It is our job to tease out those things, and to do so we need direct accountability.

Our Ministers are normally very good, and they have to be, because Mr Speaker or the Deputy Speakers will grant urgent questions, or there will be a statement or a Question Time at which Ministers have to come and give answers. Ministers also normally come to Select Committees. The system is not perfect, but it is rather less satisfactory with senior officials, and there have been occasions when Select Committees have found it quite difficult to get access to very senior officials who know a great deal that is of public interest and should not be secret.

From my memory of my past life as a Minister, there was a bit too much secrecy in government, and there was a feeling in the official machine that everything that happened before a Minister made a statement was somehow private, whereas I felt it was often better to explain some of it. If I had made a 51:49 call but had a lot of sympathy with the 49%, because it was a collective decision, I found it helpful to explain to the House that I could see both sides of the argument, that we had to come down on one side or the other but that it was a marginal call. That is helpful to the House, but sometimes Ministers seem to think that the 51% call has to be put up as the only possible answer and all other answers are stupid, which does not make for good inquiries or for a good understanding of the difficult and sometimes messy business of government, in which Ministers often make imperfect decisions on insufficient information because a decision has to be made.

Something good can come out of this incident, which may be a more general recognition by this House that we need a stronger sanction for anyone in future who has no good reason for turning down a requirement to come as a witness. We need all UK citizens to feel they should come unless there is a compelling legal reason, but we need to be sensitive to the different categories of witnesses, and we need to have proportionate and sensible responses, according to how powerful a witness is and how much access they have to support and legal advice.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for this early opportunity to debate the report of the Committee of Privileges, which we published last week, and for tabling a motion in the terms requested by the Committee. She was good enough to inform me that she is not able to be present in the Chamber this afternoon to move the motion, and I thank the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for doing so and for supporting the Committee’s report.

This case has proved rather protracted, for reasons I will come to, but it is essentially a very simple matter, so I will try to keep my remarks as brief as possible. As the hon. Gentleman outlined, Mr Cummings failed to obey, first, an order of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and, then, an order of the House itself to attend an oral evidence hearing. When the House referred this to the Privileges Committee as an alleged contempt, we agreed a resolution on process that is appended to our report. It is based on a resolution agreed by our predecessor Committee some years ago when considering the case of News International witnesses who were alleged to have committed a contempt by misleading a Select Committee. We have adhered strictly to the procedures set out in that resolution, even though it has had the effect of lengthening our inquiry.

We invited Mr Cummings to give oral evidence, but despite our giving him ample opportunity to agree a date, it proved impossible to do so. In an email to us, and again in his blog last week, Mr Cummings has made various mis-statements about this. I do not wish to detain the House unduly, but I want to put on public record a rebuttal of one or two of his assertions.

In his blog, Mr Cummings states, in relation to the date of a projected evidence session before the Committee of Privileges, as agreed in December:

“We tentatively agreed 31 Jan”

but

“they cancelled the hearing in January and declined to reschedule it”.

Our report sets out what actually happened. At the start of December we offered Mr Cummings a selection of dates for a hearing in January. In response, Mr Cummings told us that he would “probably” come on 31 January—the latest of the dates we offered—but that he would confirm before Christmas. He did not.

I wrote to Mr Cummings on 10 January, seeking confirmation. I received no reply. The Committee’s Clerk emailed him on 23 January, also seeking a response. He replied on 28 January:

“helo ive just seen this, I will reply this afternoon”.

There was no further reply. On 29 January, with two days to go until the proposed evidence session, and having had no confirmation that he would attend, the Committee met and decided that it had no alternative but to cancel the session and bring our inquiry to as rapid a conclusion as possible.

In his blog, Mr Cummings states:

“My last letter to the Committee of 26/2 is below. I got no answer...”

That is quite untrue. On 28 February, two days after his email, I wrote to him to respond in detail to his comments. I received no reply. All these letters, emails and responses are published on the Committee’s website.

At an earlier stage—this is similar to the experience of the DCMS Committee—Mr Cummings had insisted that all Members of Parliament taking part in the hearing should take an oath. I replied, pointing out that that would not be possible; we were willing to administer the oath to him, at his own request, but the oath could be administered only to witnesses, just as in the law courts the judge and barristers do not take an oath. In his blog, he described that argument as “laughable”. He also says that the Committee

“replied that No, they didn’t want to promise to tell the truth and sadly they weren’t able to make such a promise(!) but would I come anyway”.

Those comments are completely fabricated. I will not continue outlining the exchanges; anyone who wishes to can read our full report, and the various letters and email exchanges published with it, and make up their own mind as to whether it was the Committee of Privileges or Mr Cummings who was behaving unreasonably.

Notwithstanding those responses from Mr Cummings, I want to assure the House that the Committee has done its very best to approach the case scrupulously. Our report assesses whether his conduct amounts to contempt of Parliament. It might seem obvious that a refusal to obey an order of the House, or of its Committees, is a contempt of Parliament. However, in certain exceptional circumstances it is conceivable that a prospective witness might be justified in declining to give evidence, if they have genuine grounds to fear that they would be treated unfairly, or that giving evidence might significantly prejudice future court proceedings against them.

The report considers the arguments advanced by Mr Cummings to see whether there were extenuating circumstances that might have justified his conduct, particular in relation to the risk of legal proceedings against him, which Government Members have mentioned today. The report concludes that the DCMS Committee had offered Mr Cummings a series of alternative dates for a hearing and that he had not supplied any evidence that he was at significant risk of criminal prosecution, or that suggested any significant flaw in that Committee’s inquiry or in its handling of witnesses. Legal inquiries into whether he or others might have been at risk of future criminal proceedings were assessed in the light of assurances that we received from regulators, which led us to understand that he himself was not facing criminal proceedings.

We agree with the DCMS Committee that Mr Cummings’s evidence would have been relevant to its inquiry—a few moments ago we heard more detail from the Committee’s Chair about why that would have been the case—and we agree that his refusal to attend was a significant interference with that Committee’s work. We conclude that he committed a contempt by his refusal to obey first the Committee’s order and then the House’s order. We recommend that he be admonished by resolution of the House, to be communicated to him by the Clerk of the House. We do not recommend the old practice of summoning him to the Bar, which we believe would merely give him an opportunity to grandstand. The motion before the House, in conjunction with the report that it approves, constitutes the admonishment. If agreed to, no further action by the House will be sought in this matter.

Finally—this point has been raised a number of times this afternoon—the report comments that

“the case of Mr Cummings has raised further questions as to the enforceability of the House’s powers and those of its committees to secure evidence”.

The Committee will therefore now return to its wider inquiry into these matters, referred to it in the previous Parliament, and we plan shortly to announce a series of oral evidence sessions. We hope to co-ordinate our inquiry with the Liaison Committee’s current inquiry into Select Committee effectiveness.

[John Redwood]

Will the hon. Lady’s Committee pursue comparisons to see what might be working more effectively in other democratic institutions?

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that excellent suggestion. I urge right hon. and hon. Member to submit their own evidence to the Committee—we will shortly publish details on how that can be done.

It has been apparent to all of us for some time that the current situation is unsatisfactory. I acknowledge that admonishment is a fairly feeble sanction against an individual who does not appear to feel a sense of shame at his own behaviour. The historical punishments used by the House—fining and imprisonment—have not been used for many years and, although they have not been abolished, it is highly unlikely that any attempt to use them now would survive legal challenge. None of the alternative options—they may be summed up as doing nothing, attempting to assert the House’s rights through resolutions or changes to the Standing Orders, or legislating to confer powers on the House—is without objection, which is why the problem is still with us; if there was an easy answer, something would have been done a long time ago.

Notwithstanding that, the Committee wishes to canvass options vigorously, including, as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) suggests, by looking at how other legislatures around the world have dealt with the issue. We will focus not only on ways of strengthening sanctions, but at ensuring, as we have striven to do in this inquiry, that the House is fair and scrupulous in the way it treats witnesses. We intend to report to the House with proposals as soon as possible.

I will conclude by placing on the record my thanks to my colleagues on the Privileges Committee for their assistance in bringing the report to the House, to the Leader of the House for tabling the motion, and to the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), for introducing the debate. I urge the House to support the motion.

Spring Statement

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

What the hon. Lady has not mentioned is that business investment recovers to 2.3% next year, and, over the forecast, recovers entirely, so this is a cyclical change, not a structural change. There are two drivers. Of course Brexit uncertainty is having a damping effect on investment—I have said that before and I will say it again. The sooner we can lift it, the sooner investment will come into our economy, with welcome effect. But we cannot ignore what is happening in the car industry across Europe. A large part of this effect has been in our car industry. That is very worrying, but it is not a UK phenomenon; it is a much broader phenomenon.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Given the fall in new car sales that followed the big increase in vehicle excise duty, other regulatory changes and the car loan squeeze, will the Chancellor now review policy towards the car industry to make it cheaper and easier to buy a new car made in a British factory?

[Mr Hammond]

As my right hon. Friend knows, we are not able, under the current regime, to discriminate between cars made in British factories and cars made elsewhere, but we do keep all fiscal policy under review, and I am acutely conscious of the pressures that the car industry is facing at the moment.

Leaving the EU: Economic Impact of Proposed Deal

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman accuses Government Members of having a lack of clarity on the issues around Brexit. I find that slightly rich coming from the Labour Front Bench, given that the position of the Leader of the Opposition has flip-flopped as to whether to be in or out of the customs union, and whether or not to honour the pledge that he appeared to make at his party conference for a second referendum, which appears to have been parked now. It seems to me that the Opposition are trying to ride at least two horses on this issue, if not more, and we know what happens if you do that, Mr Speaker—it tends to get rather painful in the end, as we are perhaps seeing in more recent events.

The hon. Gentleman refers to the parliamentary defeat that the Government suffered more recently. He chose to overlook the fact that the House did unite around a particular way forward, and that is to seek changes to the backstop arrangements. That is now the main focus of the negotiations that are continuing in Brussels. He referred to various impacts of employers’ decisions and changes, and the impact on the economy and employment, which gives me a good opportunity to remind him of some facts. As a country, we have about the highest level of employment in our history; we have the lowest level of unemployment since the mid-1970s; and we have halved youth unemployment since 2010. Lest it be forgotten, every Labour Government in history have always left office with unemployment higher than it was when they entered office.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Treasury issue a codicil or a clarification of its economic forecasts, looking at what happens if we leave in March under the managed World Trade Organisation model, when we spend the £39 billion-plus of the withdrawal agreement on boosting public services and boosting our economy at home? We are bound to be better off—is that not true?

[Mel Stride]

It is important to recognise that the modelling is on the basis of the status quo, so the model would not take into account factors of the kind that my right hon. Friend has raised, or indeed changes in productivity or trade flows and other factors. It will be for individual Members to assess the specific issues that he raised, in that context.

Making Tax Digital

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank the hon. Lady for her various questions and will deal with them in turn. She referred to the matter of awareness and the 81% figure. We would expect that figure to rise through time quite strongly, not least because of our communications programme. We will be writing by the end of this month to the 1.2 million businesses and individuals in scope of this measure. We of course have our VAT helpline for where there are queries, and there is a huge amount of information available on gov.uk.

The hon. Lady made a pertinent and perfectly reasonable point about how businesses and individuals will navigate their way around the various software suppliers and the 160 different products. First, all that information is available on gov.uk, and, secondly, we will shortly be releasing further information that will allow businesses to put in their requirements and then reduce that number of products to a subset that is particularly relevant to their needs.

The hon. Lady asked about the resources put into MTD compared with those put into our Brexit preparations. That of course probably begs several other questions as to what aspects of our preparation for Brexit she wishes to make for that particular comparison, and I would be very happy to discuss that with her in further detail after this statement.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is there a short and comprehensible guide for small businesses in my constituency that are worried about this but have been concentrating on serving their customers, because it is not necessarily their first priority to get alongside this? They now know they have got to do it, however, and they need something short and simple so they do not have to waste too much time fiddling around with how to comply with the tax authorities.

[Mel Stride]

The short answer is yes; it can be found on gov.uk. Indeed we have also produced a partnership pack for intermediaries, which sets out in very clear language exactly what is involved and what will be expected of those businesses and individuals.

Flybmi

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I have never been a woman who has been “dropped in it”; it is my job and I am disappointed that the shadow Transport Secretary wanted to see a he and not a she at the Dispatch Box, but hopefully I can respond to his questions in the best way I can. I am also a little disappointed that the shadow Front-Bench team are all in their seats today considering the bold decisions their colleagues have taken to leave the Labour party because of a number of issues, including leadership and institutionalised antisemitism. We are talking about disappointment, but we should focus on the passengers.

We were made aware of Flybmi going into administration at the weekend. A number of conversations have been taking place. The Aviation Minister has spoken to the Cabinet Secretary responsible for transport in Scotland.



The Secretary of State has spoken to the Northern Ireland Secretary and to the local MP, the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). Information is being made available on the Civil Aviation Authority website to alert passengers about how they can get home. We must focus on the passengers who may be struggling to get home, but there are lots of alternative flights and that information is being made available. More than 300 staff have been impacted, but it is interesting to note that Loganair and Ryanair are making jobs available and recruiting heavily. The British Airline Pilots Association is also exploring options for pilots with partner airlines.

The hon. Gentleman noted the business case for Flybmi. It was possible to recognise, looking at its accounts, that it had been struggling for a while, including before Brexit and before the referendum. It is not an easy market for airlines to be in, especially regional and local airlines. He mentioned Brexit as a reason for Flybmi going into administration, but it is important to note that several other smaller airlines in Europe have also gone into administration, including Germania, VLM, Cobalt and Primera, and there are lots of different reasons why this takes place. We cannot always blame Brexit when we do not understand the business case.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the public service obligation and wanted to put the blame at the door of the Department for Transport. In case I did not make myself clear in my opening statement, Derry and Strabane Council is responsible for maintaining and managing the contract. We of course support the route via the public service obligation because it is a lifeline route. I know that that reply must come as a disappointment to him, but that is where the responsibility lies. Derry and Strabane Council has made it clear to the press and to us that it is very positive that an alternative airline will be in place soon enough. It is important to note that the aviation sector in the UK is thriving and that passenger numbers have gone up by almost 60% compared with the numbers in 2000, but it is a very tricky sector to be in, especially for the small regional players in this very large market. I hope that those responses will not be too disappointing for the hon. Gentleman.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is there any known interest from other aviation companies or entrepreneurs in buying assets and taking over the staff in greater numbers, rather than in just cherry-picking the routes?

[Ms Ghani]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The staff are all highly skilled and very professional, and it is important to note that Loganair has already made it clear that it is keen to recruit. I also believe that Ryanair has set up a stall in some of the regional airports to try to bring some of those professional staff on board. We are very positive that they will be able to secure jobs, although this must be a very distressing time for them, as it must be for the passengers. A number of airlines are showing interest in the routes, and Derry Council has made it clear to us that it has some interested parties lined up to take on the route from Derry airport. It will make that information public as soon as it can.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The Father of the House is as accurate as ever. Some colleagues are pursuing a dangerous argument that all our trading relationships with countries that are not in the EU are somehow currently under WTO terms, which is an absurd misconception. We have entered into trade agreements as a member of the EU that account for something like 16% of our goods exports.

Regardless of the significant impacts of a no-deal outcome, we could go further and say that to leave the EU having not secured a deal—an acrimonious departure —would damage our relationship with our most important trading partner for years to come and fundamentally undermine our credibility on the world stage. I cannot see how any serious-minded Member of this House could understand that that would not be of severe consequence for the United Kingdom, which is why it is so important that this House makes a clear statement today about the dangers of no deal.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Can the hon. Gentleman name a single country that has a free trade agreement with the EU that will not transfer it to the UK under the novation procedures?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

We simply do not know the answer to that question. I always listen to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say in Treasury and Finance Bill debates, but he is one of the archetypal Members who come to the House and pursues what I call the BMW argument: “Everything will be fine because we buy BMWs and everyone will give us what we want.” That argument is still being pursued in these debates, but it has been proved completely untrue by the stage of the negotiations that we are at. It is simply not good enough to say, “It will all be alright on the night. Everyone will transfer over the benefits we currently have. It will be as straightforward as that.” If that were case, the Government would not be in this morass and the country would be in a far better position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

I completely agree with the right hon. Lady. What I am saying just comes from listening to employers in my constituency who have told me that they have bought all the storage capacity they can find in order to stockpile, but they cannot stockpile more than 10 days’ worth of some of their products, and they are really concerned about the impact of the delays on just-in-time technology.

[John Redwood]

Does the right hon. Lady agree, in wanting to promote stronger and better industry once we have left, that the Government should set zero tariffs on all imported components, which we would be free to do, which would make them cheaper from non-EU countries and preserve zero tariffs for EU components?

[Yvette Cooper]

It is not clear to me how that strengthens our negotiating position with countries all over the world that might then keep their tariffs extremely high on our goods. The whole point is that, if we crash out on WTO terms, it undermines our negotiating power. Whether one thinks that is about negotiating with the EU or negotiating with other countries, we are weakening our position abroad.

We also have the impact on the NHS, which is spending £10 million on fridges: it will have to put more money into this which could be put into patient care. The police have warned that we will be less safe. They and the Border Force would immediately lose access to crucial information that they check 500 million times a year to find wanted criminals, dangerous weapons, sex offenders and terror suspects. We will not be able to use European arrest warrants to catch wanted criminals who fled here having committed serious crimes abroad. We use those warrants 1,000 times a year to send people back to face justice in the countries where those crimes have been committed. If those 1,000 suspects commit more crimes here, MPs will need to explain to the victims why we took away the power from the police to arrest and extradite them by tumbling into no deal.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that not only did quite a few people take advice, but they notified the Revenue of what they were doing and no objections were made at the time?

[Nicky Morgan]

Yes, I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. That was raised in the Westminster Hall debate led by my fellow Committee member, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker).

I say to the Minister that it is troubling to hear that tens of thousands of people who want to settle with HMRC before the 5 April deadline have yet to receive calculations from HMRC. It is impossible for them— I think it would be for most of us—to settle large bills within a matter of months if they do not know what they will be asked to pay, let alone if they cannot start to make arrangements for how to pay them. These individuals need to know how much they have to pay, and I ask Treasury Ministers to step in and make clear what will happen to those people if they do not hear from HMRC by 5 April.

I will leave that with Ministers. I hope they can tell that there are MPs on both sides of the House who are concerned about this. By working together, we can make sure that the right tax is paid, but also that people are treated fairly.

Leaving the EU: Economic Analysis

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady is arguing to remain in the European Union. That would not respect the will of the British people as expressed in the referendum, the largest turnout in any electoral event in this country’s history. She talks about the imposition of trade barriers and the impact on the economy. There would be few impacts worse, I suggest, than Scotland becoming independent and having a customs barrier between ourselves and Scotland.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Treasury publish the average 25-year growth rate in the last 25 years before we joined the European Economic Community and the average 25-year growth rate since 1992, when we have been in the full single market? In Treasury terms, this will show a massive loss of income and output as a result of belonging to those things, so the sooner we get out, the better.

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend seems to have already availed himself of precisely that information to make his point. What I can assure him is that Stephen Nickell, formerly of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, will, at the behest of the Treasury Committee, be looking at all the facts and figures and the model that we have employed in this respect. He will be given access to officials across all Departments to assist him in doing just that.